


Fire!

by fancylamp



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:45:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancylamp/pseuds/fancylamp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Endrin Aeducan seeks revenge for his father.</p><p>Irregularly Updated (Please don't hurt me)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire!

“To arms!”

They say that when the face of the apocalypse stares into you, there’s no hiding. . No matter how much you try to mend it, disaster always finds a way. It creeps along you as events unfold, slithering behind you like a snake. As you go through those twists and turns, those forks in the road, it burdens you like a sheet of metal lying on your chest. It goes away during times, and just when you think everything is fine, everything is back to the way they were before, it comes back and lashes out to you. They come back to you with a vengeance, a reprisal, repeatedly, ruthlessly battering at whatever mask you may be hiding behind.

“Sire, they’ve broken through the Diamond Quarter!”

Every man has these snakes, and every man fears them. It is the execution date that the condemned will never be informed of; it is the vanished bolt of a discharged bow. He is always under the mercy of them, and if those snakes decide to end him, that’s when you _really_ see him.

“Protect the prince at all costs, leave the outer reaches, we _must_ fight them as a whole!”

That’s when you can stare at him in the eyes and say,

“ _I understand_.”

 

“Set up around the gates! They must not break through!”

Statues of Paragons rattled as the ground shake underneath the feet of a tidal wave of soldiers. Orzammar has fallen. Decorating the chiseled stone floor are scattered bodies of Legionnaires and dwarven civilians, red blood paving the way for the invading force.

“Let me speak to my King!”

“We have to leave, now!”

“Just let me speak to him! Bhelen!”

“The King has ordered your highness to escape Orzammar as soon as possible. We _must_ leave!”

“Bhelen! Talk to me Bhelen!”

Rows of shielded Legionnaires surround the sole gate protecting the Throne Room from the ruined metropolis. Backed by the front row Legionnaires, archers and crossbowmen readies their arrows and bolts; aiming towards the stone gate. An ominous sense of harmony inundated the doomed thaig, it is the calm before the storm, an overture before the ultimate crescendo of death, gunpowder, and war cries. King Bhelen Aeducan sits upon his damned throne, overlooking the remnants of his empire. Great maul in hand, he dresses in his crown, his ceremonial plate and his battle-scarred tasset.

“Sire, the young prince has left Orzammar for the surface.”

“Good.”

The ceiling shakes as dust fall upon the dwarven battalion.

“Do you feel fear, Vartag?” Bhelen commanded.

“Yes, my King.”

“Good.”

 

The ceiling continues to shake as the group feels the imminent crashing of the waves. They are in the eye of the storm, and there is no escape now. Supported by the presence of their King, the terrified dwarves struggle to keep their footing. A gust of wind sweep across the spines of the petrified warriors. Muffled sounds of a foreign language can be heard on the other side of the stone gate.

“Be glad, Vartag,” the King, his men’s hearts aghast, bellows, “be glad, great warriors!”

He paused as the Legionnaires’ souls fossilize.

“Can you hear the great stories our descendents will pass?”

“Can you see the great statues our descendents will build?”

“They are proud people!”

“Aye…...”

“They are proud _dwarves!_ ”

“Aye!”

 

“So let me ask you,” the enthralled King exclaims, “is this not the greatest day of your life?”

The crowd explodes, and in that moment of ecstatic hope and somber, the stone gate breaches open as a thick, white smoke enters the room.

“Fire!” Vartag orders. A barrage of silver projectiles stabs into the smoke as the front role of soldiers ready to dive into the enemy horde. The golems in the back prepares to charge, but in the moment of slight confusion as the smoke grows without the expected rush, a retaliating volley of silver bolts hit the back row of Legionnaire archers. These silver bolts could not pierce through the dwarven chainmail. Out of the white smoke a single grey skinned giant reveals himself. The beast was armored in shoulder plates adorned in crimson death and dwarven flesh, wielding in his right hand a silver rod. The Qunari’s torso was painted in large strokes of muscular contours and blood. The red cuisses extended into a decorative black robe dragging behind he giant’s legs.

 

“Shanedan, bas.” His mask snapped backwards, revealing his face. The Qunari’s sideburns connected into a knotted white beard. His hair is braided backwards, groomed towards the back of his neck and his shoulders.

“Fire!” Vartag screamed, “Fire!”

The columns of archers prepare to fire another volley as the front row of tiny Legionnaires charge to engage the comparatively titanic Qunari. The Ox-man points his silver rod towards the archers, and with a flash of light the back row of dwarves erupted in screaming agony. The silver bolts stuck on their armor ignite their very soul. Many suffocate under streaking blades of lighting tormenting their flesh, the dwarves shriek in terror as their insides burst through their armor. The giant then deftly dodges every single strike from the frontal assault. In futility a Legionnaire strikes the Qunari with his axe, only to be blocked and disarmed by his enemy and instantly beheaded. Blood spurts into the air like the breaching of a dam. Wielding a Legionnaire axe in one hand and the silver rod in the other, the Qunari cleaves through the dwarves, bashing straight through their helmets and executing them with ease. Stepping on the writhing bodies on the floor, he seems to dance a dance of death, predicting every attack from the helpless dwarven soldiers, and retaliating with a single blow. Sometimes it is a simply punch to the stomach that would completely immobilize the Legionnaire, leaving them vomiting blood and spewing various kinds of body fluids from their stomach. Sometimes it would be a methodical strangling; using the body as a shield to block other attacks. The Ox-man throws the axe into the last Legionnaire’s body, and then impales the silver rod into the dwarf’s head, slowly drilling through the screaming soldier’s helmet; spilling blood and brain matter all over the stone floor. Vartag froze in absolute dread. As the body of the final Legionnaire fall into the puddle of his own filth, the Qunari picked up the corpse’s blood stained helmet.

 

“It is a pity,” the Qunari said, after examining the Legionnaire helmet he scavenged, “these are fine soldiers.”

The smoke finally settles, and groups of Qunari warriors came into the Throne Room, collecting Legionnaire bodies.

“Please disarm yourselves,” The Qunari in red stated calmly, “no more blood will be spilt over this fallen city.” He slowly walks towards Vartag and his King. “I am hereby declaring you no longer,” he pauses, “King of Orzammar.”

Bhelen stared deeply into the Legionnaire helmet in the giant’s hands.

Vartag smirked. He unsheathed his sword and blocked the Qunari’s slow ascension towards the Dwarven King’s throne.

“You kidding?” Vartag stands in front of the red plated warrior, “the Assembly might want to have a word with you before you do that.” He lets out a deafening cry before stabbing his sword into the giant. The Qunari simply caught the blade with its gloved hands.

Vartag, agitated, struggles to pull the blade out of the giant's hand, but his trusty sword would not bulge.

"Resistence is futile," the Qunari snaps Vartag's sword in half.

"That's all you got?" pulling out a dagger he spoke in a belittling tone, but the Qunari was not looking at him. The giant simply stared at the King of Orzammar, and as Vartag turn around he realizes why what he says and what he does now does not matter.

  


King Bhelen Aeducan, on his knees, removed his crown from his head.

Vartag began to weep uncontrollably in disbelief. The red blur passes in front of him towards the surrendered king. The Qunari looks at the crown on the floor and picks it up. He turns around and tosses the Legionnaire helmet to his men, and approaches Bhelen.

“Why?” Vartag asks.

The Ox-man lowers his body and murmurs into the old king's ear,

"Let your son avenge you."

He then raises the Orzammar crown, and bashes the flawless crown into Bhelen Aeducan’s skull. The dwarven king drops dead onto the ground, half of his face completely unidentifiable in blood and tissue. Vartag Gavorn stares into his king’s sole remaining eye and all he could see is powerlessness. He was complacent. Underneath the petrifying gaze of the apocalypse he realizes there is nothing he could do.

He understood.


End file.
